Atheism that sticky wicket

I’ve never hidden the fact that I am an atheist. But then equally I’ve never rammed it down anyone’s throat either. I’m the silent atheist, who just goes along his day looking like “normal people”, doing “good deeds” and acting “in a moral way”. But… without… a belief in a deity. I know, if I believed in hell, I’m sure I’d be going right there.

What spurred this post was an amount of press that a certain number of religious zealot types have been receiving for their attempts to destroy science. In particular, evolution.

Lets ignore the fact that evolution has been pretty well founded, proved and presented as a series of stages….

..actually lets ignore that entirely because the one thing that I really don’t understand is….

Why are religious people trying to prove God?

At every level of the current campaign by the likes of this Muppet and this genius there seems to be a whole “lets destroy science” and then “lets prove God WITH science” type concept.

Which is HILARIOUS because isn’t the basic tenant of religion that it is based on faith. If you prove something, doesn’t that destroy the reason to have faith in it?

Science works under the basis of evidence, proofs if you like.You don’t need to “believe” in something, it is either true or not true based upon the evidence.

Religion operates in the world of faith. You don’t have to prove something exists, it’s your belief in it that makes it real to you.

So… why are so many religious types so bent on destroying their own “faith”?

Well, I think it’s because they see so many people in the world “loosing their faith”, taking another road and blame science, they feel they have to attack it and attempt to employ it to their own ends.

Not realising that in the end, science and religion are not good bedfellows.

And in related news…

A few months back I financially assisted a friend of mine in the United States to effectively feed herself when her somewhat abusive husband decided to empty the house of food and leave her no money. She’d not eaten for days.

Her “so called” Christian friends were not willing to help because my friend was about to leave her husband. The whole thing came to a head and in the end she left early and now has a new life, new job and a fresh start in life.

Two things struck me.

I could not understand why her friends and family, so proud of their Christian values, couldn’t act upon it’s basic tenants as to provide charity to those in need. They couldn’t, but they were willing to “pray for her” and that her husband would change his ways. Oddly, 20 years of that still hadn’t paid off.

The irony that of all the people she knows, it was the atheist who offered her help and the very next day her father posted an article (from a Christian website) that PROVED that none religious people were neither moral nor charitable.

6 comments

Since abandoning prayer, I am now compelled to actually think about what I can do to help others. Good job being a real friend, and it’s sad that what you did even needs to be pointed out. But it does.

I felt it necessary to point it out because of the sheer hypocrisy of the thing. It reminds me of a story I heard about two famously religious people.
The first is Mother Teresa who would go to extraordinary lengths and hardship to try and help the poor of Calcutta. Except when the AIDS epidemic hit the streets and started decimating the poor. She then went out of her way to campaign against the distribution of free condoms, resulting in the deaths of an untold number of people. Purely because her religion forbade it.

Then we have the Dalai Lama, a man who charges for public speaking and wants to return Tibet to a theocracy that he will rule. I suggestion people who don’t understand the history watch this video. Yes, that IS the 14th Dalai Lama having machine guns confiscated and being thrown out of Tibet into India. There you were, believing he was a man of peace.

Religious people are very well aware that religion is slowly but surely being erroded.
It makes some sad and some angry but the march of progress is unstoppable.
This battleground diverts attention from far more serious matters and in the background 23, 000 people quietly starve to death each day.

23,000 starve to death around the world each day for a number of reasons.
Some are victims of natural disasters, unable to be helped in time due to lack of interest, or infrastructure or ability to save them.
Some are the victims of armed conflict between nations, groups, cultures and religions.
Some are the victims of their own folly or political intrigue. Check out the details of the famine in Ethiopia.

Your case study on your friend is sad. Those people suck. They are sucky Christians. I suspect there were other factors at play that kept them from helping her …even if they should have done so.

There are churches doing truly charitable work (no not converting pagans but legitimately helping both Christians and non Christians). They do it because they are called to do so by religion.

Mother Theresa was old and, guess what, had an outdated understanding of teaching people to fish. But she sill did more than I know I could ever do…and I’m okay with this. But my Catholic mother was always complaining about the very things you mentioned here.

Being Christian does not raise a person beyond criticism, but I don’t know any sane people who claim it makes you any less flawed as a human.

You are not a better person by virtue of your atheism, nor am I a better person by calling myself Christian. Nor am I worse.

There are many Christian programs in the USA designed to help women struggling with absue in their homes. I’m sorry she didn’t have the resources she really needed. I’ve witnessed many church communities help and protect strangers and members in similar situations.